Paul Smith Tag

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by Paul Smith Delighted that Gibside Fruitbowl Run is back on the North East race calendar once more and chuffed to bits to be the first Crook AC runner back home across the finish line. A crisp autumnal Sunday morning with a watery wintery sun high up in a clear blue sky. Gibside, once owned by the Bowes-Lyon family, now a National Trust jewel in the County Durham crown, boasting an 18th century orangery along with its Tuscan columns, a 140 feet high

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by the Stig Road races, hill races, athletics track and trail races, we've all tackled them and enjoyed/endured them, but there's always something about a quirky running event and that's precisely what last Sunday's Croft Motor Circuit Run was. Similar to Saturn Running events where competitors can run whatever distance they wish on the day, however, on this occasion individuals had to commit on entry, 5k? 10k? Half Marathon? 20 mile? Or Full Marathon? I originally had committed to the classic distance but

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by Brad Wight Another cracking club day out despite the downpour which managed to soak everything inside our once waterproof tent… The U11 lads were off first with Joe Hall Junior completing the 1km race in 5:20, he looked so determined on the long downhill finish, teeth gritted just like his dad at a NEMAA sprint! The U11 girls were next up, Eleanor Shaw and my youngest daughter Adelaide making their XC debut alongside Meadow Winham. All three slogged up the hill then

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by Brad Wight What an unbelievable turnout for Crook! 66 runners across 14 teams with all age categories represented. More runners than any other club! The organisers weren’t joking when they responded to our entry submission with “I’m beginning to worry I haven’t ordered enough numbers.” Alistair Hart had to run with a hand drawn number and I noticed a few XC numbers being re-cycled too! The first race of the day saw the Women, Veteran Women (over 35) and V50 men

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by Lisa Donaldson I booked this event in May as soon as the tickets were available because I just needed that medal in my life and after doing the “runs and roses” one back in March I knew it would be a good base line to maybe try for an Ultra as you don’t count the miles but the laps you do (doesn’t seem that bad then) so my mind was already set to just push that little bit further, even

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by Brad Wight Where to start? Safe to say from both a running and a weather perspective it was a right mixed bag! All week the weather forecast was looking far from ideal for distance running. Brendan Foster wrote to runners saying “Sunday will not be a day for PB’s.” Well, what does he know? I’ve counted NINE personal bests in the results, and there may be more as some of our newer members registered without a club name. At the front end, starting

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  Meeting 5 The penultimate NEMAA Track & Field League took place on Monday 31st July. As was the case with most of July (or so it seemed) it had rained quite a bit during the day, and a particularly heavy deluge in the vicinity of Monkton Stadium at about 5pm resulted in the cancellation of all field events. Here’s the post that appeared on the NEMAA website: “It’s a washout!” "Huge apologies to those athletes who turned up tonight to find that all

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By Paul Smith Whilst you lovely CrookAC lads and lasses were out running at such events as, Ali Brownlee 5k, Great North 10k, and parkruns, including Ken’s palindrome 202 parkrun celebration run at Hackworth, apologies for my absence as I was otherwise engaged, obviously it was running related, of course. Yours truly was down in Derbyshire for the weekend, Chesterfield to be exact, to be even more precise, The Technique Stadium, the home of Chesterfield Football Club. Last time I was at

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by Geoff Hewitson The second NEMAA Track & Field League meeting of the 2023 season took place last Monday evening, once more in near perfect weather conditions. The men's team had a reasonable turnout of 9 competitors, including a welcome return to NEMAA competition for Jason Marr. A combination of unavailability and Kimberley being struck down with Covid at the 11th hour meant that the ladies only had the bare minimum of 3 competitors necessary to constitute a team. The men’s team

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by Geoff Hewitson Over 50 teams took part in this popular mixed team format relay on the site of the former Consett Steelworks. The course is a challenging loop of approximately 2.1 miles with the notorious hill coming near the end. Our Club has enjoyed a great deal of success in this event, having either won it or finished in the top 3 on several occasions. In 2022 we finished runners-up and were the overall winners the previous time it was